Dane Gerber: SA Super XV Back-lines are useless

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Cape Town - Former Springbok centre Danie Gerber says he is finding hard nowadays to watch the South 

African teams in action in Super Rugby.

Things are looking bleak for the SA teams

 in this year’s competition, with no local team looking like serious title contenders at present.

If it weren’t for the requirement of each

 of the three conference leaders automatically occupying the top three berths on the 

overall table, the best-placed SA franchise - 

now the Bulls - would actually lie sixth.

They instead unconvincingly command third, 

with the high-flying Hurricanes and 

Australian pace-setting Brumbies ahead 

of them, but should really be behind all 

of the Chiefs, Highlanders and Crusaders 

as well.  

The SA teams are struggling on attack, 

which shows in the try-scoring statistics.

To date, New Zealand teams have scored

 90 tries, Australian teams 70, and SA

teams 65.

Last season, Kiwi teams scored 223 tries, 

Australian teams 216 and SA teams only 156.

Gerber, who was renowned for his try-scoring ability, says it’s frustrating to watch SA teams in action.


“Our rugby is messed up by an obsession

 to mostly attack with the forwards.

Gerber told Netwerk24.

Gerber, 56, played 24 Tests for the Springboks between 1980 and 1992, scoring 19 tries.

Here is the test....how many SA backs would make the NZ backline. Perhaps Pollard and if he continues to develop perhaps de Allende. I have read the claims about supposed talent so many times. Where are the centres, where are the wings? 

What we have always been able to do is put together an effective international backline, but spreading the talent over all these S15 teams makes for weak tea.

The deniers can deny until they are blue in the face....the truth is painfully obvious. Teams that source big, fast Pacific nation backs are at an advantage in the backs. We have no physical equivalent except for occasional exceptions like Gerber, Habana and Jean. Our advantage is in the tight forwards....hookers, locks and loosies.

Bok coaches instinctively understand this and craft their team to deal with that reality.

In the CC Kolbe was a super star. In the S15 he is pretty vulnerable....that puts things in perspective.

I quoted the above because it is totally unrealistic and totally false as well.  Gerber was not a a particularly big guy and  neither is Habana.   Danie Gerber was at his prime 1,85 meter tall weighing 88 kg - ie about the same size as the clueless De Jongh and smaller than Jordaan.  Habana is 1,80 meters and 94 kgs.    That on its own showed how false the dimwit's statements really are.  The real truth is that our coaches has no real ability to take backline players with potential and coach them to a higher level of competence.   They developed a game plan that destroyed the development of backline players on a totally flimsy basis.

Because this has been the case for years - at least during the past decade - there is no way that our backline players could ever develop their skills and a positive game plan could be developed:-

*   White was a coach with no insight into backline play.  He had to get Eddie Jones to deal with the problem in 2007 and try to get some positives into the Springbok team.  He used Larkham for the same purpose by coaching the Brumbies - but lost it completely while coaching the Sharks last year - so much so that the Sharks backline in fact self-destructed and we sit with the problem we have today.    It will take years of skills and game plan development to get over the backline nightmare of last year.

*    De Villiers was clueless and the team was run by senior players like Smit, Steenkamp, Bakkies Botha, Matfield, Juan Smith and co.  Please note the virtual total absence of backline players from that group.  The backline players used in that era was basically Du Preez and Pienaar at scrummie and the clueless Steyns at flyhalf.  

*       Meyer at least came to the conclusion that something is seriously amiss and started to look at improving backline play.  he eventually got rid of the core problem - Morne Steyn - and started to look at younger and more thinking players like Pollard and Lambie at flyhalf.  His progress was hampered last year because of regression in the performance of De Villiers and the fact that he went backwards because of the Jacque Fourie story.   There was a few positive signs - but every positive sign was not followed up since Meyer himself does not have the ability to properly develop skills of backline players and to implement a comprehensive game plan.      

The scrummies had no real game plan other than to make most of their passes back to the forwards or kicked the Sh!t out of balls - often enough not accurate as well. When they did pass the ball - the flyhalf kicked away aimlessly and inaccurately over 60% of the balls they handled during matches.   In the case of about a third of the balls they did pass - 75% were used for crashball purposes.   So what happens in reality?   Less than 5% of the balls delivered by the forwards ever reach any player outside of the no 12.  In some cases it is as low as 1%.   All the above is part of a totally inadequate and idiotic game plan of our present coaches.

But then the above garbage is written by an idiot so influenced by the  idiotic thinking of our coaches - that he can write that 90% of the functions of a flyhalf is to kick the ball.   So what does that mean?   A totally inadequate skills development programme for backline players and an idiotic game plan executed by dull and unimaginative players with a minimal degree of accuracy.    That is the level of backline play coaching and game plan development at present in SA.    

Former Springbok coach Andre Markgraaff is worried about the skills levels of South Africa’s top players.

Things are looking bleak for the SA teams in this year’s Super Rugby competition, with no local team looking like serious title contenders at present. 

If it weren’t for the requirement of each of the three Conference leaders automatically occupy the top three berths on the overall table, the best-placed SA franchise - the Bulls - would actually lie sixth.

They instead unconvincingly find themselves in third, with the high-flying Hurricanes and Australian pace-setting Brumbies ahead of them, but should really be behind all of the Chiefs, Highlanders and Crusaders as well. 

"We are too pattern-bound, even from primary school level. The only saviour is that we have so much talent in the country," Markgraaff told Netwerk24.

“We just seem incapable of attacking like the New Zealanders.”

The SA teams are struggling on attack, which shows in the try-scoring statistics.

To date, New Zealand teams have scored 90 tries (in 35 matches), Australian teams 70 (34 matches), and SA teams 65 (37 matches).

Markgraaff said if the rules regarding driving mauls are changed, then South African teams would be in even more trouble.

"The application of the law is farcical. We’d be in real trouble if the laws are changed. What would be left for us on attack?"

Markgraaff, 59, coached the Springboks between 1996 and 1997, but was forced to quit after making controversial racial statements."

Markgraaf made two very pertinent comments:-

*  "...is worried about the skills levels of South Africa’s top players."; and

*   "We are too pattern-bound, even from primary school level. The only saviour is that we have so much talent in the country,"

The above virtually confirm what I said earlier, namely that -

 *   the game plan used  is poor and inadequate; and

*   the coaching of players are inadequate.

In fact Markgraaf referred to the talent available in this country as a benefit - but it is obvious that the talent is not utilized and in fact wasted by our coaches.  

The day we get decent backline coaches and a more modern game plan is the day when SA starts improving in rugby performance.  

I said, "Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Don't hang around boy two's a crowd
On my cloud baby"